RuneScape: Deep History of RuneScape

-History of RuneScape-

For you who are reading this, and don’t know what is RuneScape, it’s the largest and most popular free MMORPG. It’s a browser based game, having all it’s data accumalated to 3-4TB!

Having 104 million active accounts, it all started when Andrew Gower created a java game called ‘Devious Mud’, the basic and first form of RuneScape Classic (RSC). A few years later, with the assistance of his brother, Paul Gower, RuneScape was ready for playing, having it’s first server running on Paul’s attic in Nottingham. The game grew massive, with fan sites such as Tip.It, Sals, RuneHQ, Zybez and much more.

In 2001, Andrew, Paul and Constant Tedder formed a company named as ‘JaGEx’, known as ‘Java Gaming Experts’ to handle the business aspects. On Febuary 2002, a membership including more skills, quests, weapons, and items was introduced, since RuneScape’s domain wouldn’t allow paying via ads.

More and more players each day. With the vast amount of players, JaGEx resorted to producing another version of the game, called RuneScape 2, which was later renamed to RuneScape. People who were previously playing on RuneScape Classic, could forward their accounts to the newer version. Until it becomes what you see today.

December 2007, Real-world-trading became an important and serious issue among the JaGEx office, ‘Gold Farmers’ were stealing credit card numbers, having lawsuits being thrown at JaGEx. To stop this, JaGEx introduced rescricted trade limits and removal of PvP wilderness. This was however, to prevent scamming and gold farming, but in return, JaGEx solution backfired. Without PvP anymore, thousands of people quitted RuneScape, a small price to pay however, in order to get rid of gold farming.

February 2009, as Andrew stepped down from his job, a new CEO was introduced – Mark gerhard, also known ingame as ‘Mod MMG’. He managed to disclose some information about the game, opened JaGEx Moderator clan chats, clearing up the mist of air between players and JMods. They managed this with the increase of communication with fansites, Q&A sessions and more.

-Credits and Ending Speech-

Thanks for your time reading, it took me a few days of research and help of friends to manage to finish this article. I hope you enjoy it, as it wasn’t easy writing it. Try visiting my other articles aswell,

Why RunesScape is so addicting:

http://gameolosophy.com/games/online/runescape/runescape-why-is-it-so-addicting/

RuneScape: Falador Massacre

http://gameolosophy.com/games/online/runescape/runescape-falador-massacre-exact-story/